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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:15
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Bangalor and Lahore are also mine, though the annoying 'We take back our city and all your troops stationed there vanish' thing is getting tired. I understand this has to do with relative culture ratings, but tell me: If I'm in a war, how do I invest in culture? "Well, that's the point, Yin!" I understand, and that part is good. BUT: That virtually means you have to have a higher culture in order to WIN this kinds of wars without all the hassles. But a higher culture Civ likely won't have the resources for troops if the investment has gone into culture.
There's some sort of odd Catch-22 going on here.
A few negatives:
* When you go to war, there's no message between the civs. It's as if nothing happens.
* The workers are an intolerable micro-manage nightmare! And the 'automate' function has them running around doing the stupidest things ... running between cities, for example, building nothing! *sigh* I had hoped the days of the 'spinning in circles terraformers' would end.
* You lose your entire army in a city if you are deposed. C'mon. That's silly. I have a garrison of 8 troops and 6 citizens not only take back the city but wipe out the entire army?
A few positive points:
* The linked words to the Civilopedia is great! So easy to find the info you need.
* When you quit the game, you drop right to the desktop. I *hate* games that make you go through 2 or 3 menus just to exit.
* The AI actually dropped troops behind my war front! Sadly, it only brought a single warrior. 
By the way, since I'm bogged down in a war on an island ... I have a sinking feeling I'm being totally outclassed by the 6 other civs in the game. And since I have no diplomatic relationship with them, I have no trade. I guess I should have built a galley, eh?
Well, if I can kill India at least, I'll be happy enough for my first try.
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Jason
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Halifax, NS, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:15
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/agree firmly about armies poofing. If your armies don't have a credible... something making them vanish into thin air, then they shouldn't.
Frankly if the armies outnumber the foreign nationals in a city that should be an automatic no-revolt right there.
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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:15
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O.K. More update.
I seem to have gotten myself into a horribly sluggish start. I should have expanded more agressively and worried more about resources. This seems to be a universal 'getting used to' problem among a lot of us. I could have started over, but I want to play the game in full. Take my beating.
Some good stuff:
* Sometimes a city will need to build something urgently, in which case you get a message, one of which allows you to 'Let CityX complete [current item] then start [new item].' VERY convenient!
* Things are just so much more delicate in this game! It's really impossible to just roll over enemy cities the way you used to in Civ2! Even when you pile up units (which you pretty much have to), you'll need to keep them fortified in newly-taken cities to keep them from deposing you ... this gives the enemy lots of time to prepare its next city for your arrival. So if you plan to go to war: Blitzkrieg!
Some bad stuff:
* The excessive roads still look terrible, along with the mines. I hope Firaxis considers my proposal for graphics toggles.
* The diplomacy side of things is awfully artificial and prone to abuse. For example, I can get India to give me some techs for peace. Then simply take another city. Get him to give me another tech for peace, etc. The diplomacy AI really needs to keep track of how often you break treaties.
* Along with that, the AI never even cared when I started massing troops in his borders. Sure, we were at peace at the time, but by now it should plan better against my treachery.
Well, here's the latest image. You'll notice very little change. Things have see-sawed back and forth, but I've pretty much caught up with India and made them hurt. Problem is: I've now contact other Civs and they are vastly superior to me. The *ONLY* way I can win this one is to wipe out India somehow to get this whole island to myself, keep the other civs happy with me, and try to get them to go to war with each other. Then, using my isolation to buy time, catch up with tech and econ and try to make taking me over a holy terror. Absorb the first wave and time my counter-strike. Easier said than done, however, when I lack the resources to build anything advanced. Basically: Trade or die.
 Attachment: stalemate_india2.jpg
This has been downloaded 813 time(s).
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SuiteSisterMary
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quote:
'We take back our city and all your troops stationed there vanish' thing is getting tired.
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Makes sence; they kill your units in house to house, guerilla style combat, and form a 'militia' which results in one modern defensive unit when the city returns to it's parent.
And I'll tell you some time about the time that I established a city on a different continant to get some coal, and the AI actually blockaded it, then started dropping troops on my mainland (I'm talking it sent in a sortie of six! fully loaded galleons with calvary) and overwhelming my poor musketmen.
Of course, this is also the map where I simply had no horses, oil or rubber....
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Soren Johnson Firaxis
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Hunt Valley, MD
May 2001
time: 00:15
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quote:
Originally posted by yin26
Crap. Madras just decided they like India better. *poof* Gone. Now I want to go on record with this statement:
"It's ironic that the addition of culture has made me want to simply raze cities instead of building them up."
Here's another statement:
"Of all the challenges in Civ3, perhaps one of the greatest will be your starting position. Deal with it!"
You see, if I had simply razed that city and followed up with a settler, I could have kept it and never worried about having all my units stationed there simply evaporating because the citizens like curry more than sweet and sour sauce.
And if I hadn't been on this island, I would have had more room to breath. However, that one was MY fault. Next time I'll really see early on where I am on the map, who's my neighbor and what resources I have. Gee: Makes sense! I might start off in a bad spot at times, but that just adds to the challenge (though I suspect some random map tweaking might be in order here).
Now keep in mind: I enjoy having to rethink things ... but something is a but off here ... now for bed. |
a bit of advice since you seem to be getting frustrated with the city conversion... try focusing on conquering the Indians cities which are farthest from Delhi, since distance from the foreign capital is a strong factor in city conversion. (Other improtant factors are number of combat units (land units with an offense or defense factor) stationed in the city, Civil Disorder, We Love The King Day, overall culture ratio, and culture ratio within that city (how many culture point you accrued in Madras vs. how many points Ghandi accrued in Madras).) Hope that helps...
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Jason
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Halifax, NS, Canada
Aug 1999
time: 05:15
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Makes sence; they kill your units in house to house, guerilla style combat, and form a 'militia' which results in one modern defensive unit when the city returns to it's parent
I don't buy this. Cities should only EVER defect if they have less than their pop in units as garrison, and even then it's far fetched. One's army of occupation isn't going to change sides because of "culture," and armed rabbles can't destroy armies of the same size past ancient times.
And no, urban situations don't matter. You didn't see the Parisians inviting the Germans in to dance in 1871 and wiping them out. Urban situations make a defending ARMY strong against an opposing ARMY, assuming equivalent competency. A civil uprising against a huge garrison should result in population loss, at worst.
I might have to fight wars with communism and force build settlers or something. This business of armed-to-the-teeth occupied cities poofing away from you simply won't do.
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Comrade Tribune
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Vienna, Austria
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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Best thing: the rules changes; nearly all on the good side.
I like increased corruption (Forget about the whiners!  ), more expensive techs, more expensive improvements, more tough choices!!
Worst thing: To get at the info that matters -The numbers!-, you have to wade through the Civilopedia. The first thing I look at is the charts and tables; now, CivIII doesnīt have any charts and tables. Nowhere in either the manual or Civilopedia will you find a one-page-chart listing all city improvements with requirements/price/what they do. Same for techs. Similar for units: There is a unit list, but the numbers are way off. Any kind of cost/effectiveness analysis is incredibly difficult, not because the game is so hard, but because the info is hidden somewhere in the depths of the Civilopedia at best, or is missing at worst.
For example, I couldnīt find what the 'fortify' command Defense Bonus is: It could be 25% or 200%, search me! Unbelievably this seems to be nowhere in either the manual or the Pedia. So how to decide what is better: Defense or Counterattack, if you donīt know what the f*****g Fortify Bonus is? 
Some weird bugs: I turned the grid on, but cannot turn it off. Impossible to get rid of the grid. Also, I donīt want to see units that are fortified in a city. I turned them off in the options, but they donīt go away!
Still early in my first game: Babylonians at Monarch (formerly known as King) level, small map, restless Barbs, 5 Civs.
I am doing reasonably well: Sharing a large continent with the Zulus: They are stronger and have more cities, but I have 3 times as much culture as they, they are too impressed by my sophistication to be very annoying. Something bad happened, though: I had spent 1.000 years happily working on my wonderful Great Library, but 2 turns before completion the English finished it!  (I always play 'Ironman' mode, so no going back to a savegame; I will have to cope with this catastrophe somehow.) See you! 
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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:15
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Soren Johnson: Many thanks for the advice. I'm learning to try to understand the mechanics of it and plan better.
HalfLotus: Well, I can buy the game from him for $35, which is quite cheap. My main concerns are over at this point now that I solved graphics problems, etc. Again, I buy a game a month (or every other month) from him. It's been like that for 5 years! That's a LOT of money I've given the guy!
GP: I'll be honest: I haven't played Civ2 in more than 2 years. Back at my best, I was a 'Deity is doable but I don't really like the way I have to play in order to win' kind of guy. I freely admit I was only an average+ player at the time.
Jason: Yes, it's a sort of artificial represenation of the other civs overall cultural power. Not realistic, per se, but it does at a certain challenge to the game. If you look in the strategy forum, you can see people have already developed some good ways of dealing with it. I agree, though, it's counter-intuitive.
CT: Some excellent points there. I'll check that out (I normally don't read the manual on my first game if I can avoid it). I'll certainly put that in my review, too.
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Ironwood
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Fresno, CA
Oct 2001
time: 21:15
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One question: Do weaker units (i.e. Warriors) cost less to maintain than stronger units (i.e. archers, swordsmen, knights, etc.). If so, a good wartime strategy would be to build a small invaasion force (a few swordsmen, etc.) followed by hordes of quickly built and cheaply maintained warriors (to act as a sort of police force). This is relatively historically accurate (just the sort of Persian armies Alexander faced).
A comment: when military units outnumber population units, in the simulation, military *population* (number of actual soldiers) does not outnumber city population (number of actual citizens). Were that the case, having one warrior unit in a size one city would ammount to half the population being under arms (perhaps all the able bodied men, unable bodied eldery men, little boys, infant boys, etc... or, including women as well). A size one city can support a bit more units than that. As far as the units disappering; well of corse they did. They were killed. Citizens can, when(ever) they want to, manage to get ahold of weapons. Though I do agree that, when the city changes hands in this way, there should be a population drop (though only of one, IMO).
And as far as the culture model encouraging the razing of cities rather than building them up, this is somewhat realistic, as well. This was SOP in wars during the ancient era, precisely because revolt was just too likely to occur. This could also model a sitution similar to the War of 1812. The British may have run free in our *capital* (though they got beat in the backwoods), but they couldn't keep it, not without considerable expenditures on garrisoning, which they were unwilling to do (with good reason).
So, wars in Civ3 will likely serve one of two purposes, under most circumstances:
1. Destroy enemy military units, destroy local culture (thus reducing the possibility of the enemy assimilating your cities, or claiming nearby land... border disputes).
2. Exterminate an enemy population.
The only time one would be likely to attempt to occupy and hold a signifigant enemy city would be when one finds they can afford to do so (probably more likely in later eras, particularly as the cities will be more valuable to keep).
One piece of advice, Yin. Try to develop... and use... naval technology in this conflict. He may have sufficient culture to frustrate your ambitions, but dropping a few commandos on their capital (thus capturing it, and resetting it's culture to zero, even if it revolts back into Indian hands) will reduce that problem quickly. Be sure to sell a cultural improvement before this occurs (assuming it works the same as in previous Sidgames). A number of strikes of this sort, at various points, could reduce your troubles considerably.
Note that I haven't actually played a game yet (I had a bit of credit card troubles. I preordered it when it was still under my old address, but they tried to charge it after it reached the new address, and it didn't work. So I'll be waitin until next Friday, at best). But I have been following the mechanics, and the experiences of various players. I long to try my strategies in the game itself; these discussions are the best I can do for now.
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Peterk
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Montreal, Canada
Oct 2001
time: 05:15
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Hey Yin,
Loving your replay.
And I'm starting to see a pattern...the way your game started, 2 of mine have started that way as well (handful of civs on a small continent with fast expansion). Have to say I approve - leads to very tense early and middle games.
I'm a little jealous, looks like you'll be cruising after India's finished. It's a little harder with 3 civs on the same continent.
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03-11-2001 06:02
Could it be that you could not help yourself after a majority of the reviews came back saying Civ3 was excellent? 
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